1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cartridge having a chamber that holds a recording material used for printing therein. More specifically the invention pertains to a technique of transmitting information to and from a cartridge without a built-in sensor, which is compatible with a cartridge with a built-in sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
A diversity of printing apparatuses have been used widely; for example, printing apparatuses that eject inks on printing paper to print images, such as ink jet printers, and printing apparatuses that utilize toners to print images. A cartridge mounted on such a printing apparatus has a chamber to hold a recording material, such as an ink or a toner, therein. Management of the residual quantity of the recording material is an important issue in the printing apparatus. The printing apparatus counts the consumption of the recording material according to a software program for the purpose of management. One known technique uses a sensor mounted on the cartridge for direct measurement of the consumption. This technique is disclosed, for example, in PATENT LAID-OPEN GAZETTE No. 2001-147146.
A variety of sensors may be mounted on the cartridge. When the target recording material to be detected is a conductive ink, the sensor may measure an electric resistance to determine the remaining ink level. Another technique uses a piezoelectric element or another electrostriction element located in a resonance chamber, which is defined in the recording material-holding chamber, and measures the resonance frequency of the electrostriction element to determine the presence or the absence of the recording material in the resonance chamber. The target of measurement may be the temperature, the viscosity, the humidity, the granularity, the hue, the residual quantity, or the pressure of ink or another recording material. In these cases, an exclusive sensor is used for the target physical property to be detected. For example, the sensor may be a thermistor or a thermocouple for measurement of the temperature or may be a pressure sensor for measurement of the pressure.
A cartridge without a built-in sensor may be attached to the printing apparatus designed for the use of a cartridge with a built-in sensor. In such cases, the cartridge does not give a normal response signal and the printing apparatus malfunctions. For example, a cartridge CR2 without a built-in sensor is not applicable to a printing apparatus P1 designed for the use of a cartridge CR1 with a built-in sensor, even when the cartridges CR1 and CR2 have identical specifications except the presence or the absence of the built-in sensor. The printing apparatus P1 has a failure in the sensor-related processing and can not make initialization or continue any further processing. Namely the printing apparatus P1 designed for the use of the cartridge CR1 with the built-in sensor and a printing apparatus P2 designed for the use of the cartridge CR2 without the built-in sensor can not share identical cartridges.